Google to Settle iOS Safari Privacy Investigation for $22.5 Million

Google will reportedly pay the FTC $22.5 million to settle an investigation over its bypassing of mobile Safari's privacy settings, says the WSJ. The fine would be the largest penalty the Federal Trade Commission has levied on a company.

The current charges involve Google's use of special computer code to trick Apple's Safari Web-browsing software into letting it monitor users that had blocked such tracking. Google disabled the code after being contacted by the Journal, which wrote about Google's practices in February.

Google officials say tracking of Apple users was inadvertent and didn't cause any harm to consumers. But Google's actions appeared to contradict previous statements it had made assuring Apple users that they could rely on Safari's privacy settings to block unwanted tracking.

Google is still under investigation by the European Union and a group of U.S. state attorney generals over the matter.